


A History of Love in One Hundred Objects [abridged]

by maypop



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, i am not as i was under good justinia's reign
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 10:47:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10463145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maypop/pseuds/maypop
Summary: The things you keep also keep you, OR, how fantasy pope got a girlfriend.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [placentalmammal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/placentalmammal/gifts).



32\. A small piece of leather that has not been moved in four weeks. It is being used as a bookmark, set between pages 110 and 111 of _One Knight in Val Chevin_. On page 109, Marcel Durand, raised in Orlais but a secret follower of the Black Divine, had begun to muse on the impossibility of loving a sister of the Andrastian Chantry and ever being loved in return.

 

24\. Five Divine Victoria souvenir plates of a set of six, all of which Vivienne insists get her nose wrong, the sixth being thrown away after Sera declares, "Well I'm licking that, aren't I, can't be helped" and suited action to word.

 

4\. A sword summoned to Vivienne's hand from nothingness, from pure magic, blinding white and a burning cold that you could feel from across the battlefield. The light it casts on Vivienne picks her out in fine detail, sharp and bright and a blankness on her face that might make a watcher think of iconography, that might feel slightly blasphemous to look on, if the watcher had time for such thoughts during combat.

 

60\. A breastplate made with deep red dragon scales.

 

64\. One dried peony, papery and fragile, over which the following is said:  
  
_\--I did not take you for the flowers type._  
 _\--What did you_ take me for _, if I might ask?_  
_\--I did not mean to cause offense._  
 _\--Don't worry, darling, that's hardly in your power._  
 _\--You are angry. Why? Of all people,_ I _could not judge you--_  
_\--My desk is not a rag stall in the market for you to rummage through._  
_\--Most Holy._

 

47\. One copy of _**To Seek Andraste in the Honeycomb** , composed originally during the time of Divine Rosamund, here updated to our present situation, with some emendation of a tepid rhyme scheme_, original author unknown, reissuer also unknown, the scroll left on top of Cassandra's mail.  
47a. _so learn'd I, in the pious south,_  
_of what sweetnefse lyes between hillocks_  
_what nectar overfloes the pilgrim's mouth_  
_the exalted counsil art a bunch of pillocks_  
47b. What it almost certainly a pile of raven shit, also on her mail.

 

48\. Three wooden practice dummies battered into matchsticks.

 

6\. A tisane, mainly the sour, ubiquitous elfroot, but sweetened with a fragrant spice brought by Vivienne, at appalling expense, to Skyhold. Vivienne will do what she likes with her own belongings, thank you _so_ much, Seeker, do save yourself the embarrassment of venturing an opinion before you are asked for it, and drink it _all_ , yes, all of it, I can _see_ you.

 

90\. A love letter, unfinished, discarded.

 

27\. A letter, kept, and kept secret, of advice, never followed, of admonishments, brushed off, of concern, pieced together by an experienced reader of--certain texts, containing the phrase, burned into memory: _in the event of which you will come home at once._

 

40\. A letter, lost in transit, that she will never know what said, the existence of which nevertheless feels, to Cassandra, like a lost tooth, a gap inside her that can't quite close.

 

33\. The statue of Andraste with bound hands and closed mouth that Vivienne is prone to stop under, and under which, after an extremely long night's planning, Vivienne says, _the first love story we ever learned, you know, the one so strong and powerful that you'd burn alive for it without screaming. By the Maker, Cassandra, lead me to my bed before I become as dramatic as Leliana. If I ever wear chainmail in public kindly assassinate me._

 

82\. A kind of fried cake made in the Free Marches that Cassandra is informed most definitely will not travel.

 

83\. The jerkin thrown away to make room for a sack of ingredients that will.

 

70\. The wine, over which Vivienne asks, in a tone that is as near as she can come to sincere bafflement, how Cassandra doesn't hate her for being chosen in her stead.

 

18\. A small potted tree with silver-green leaves, delivered during the haying season, that Cassandra is instructed to punch _gently_.

 

91\. The snow, that in silence melts on Vivienne's cheeks, on her hat, that in tiny delicate flakes catches in her eyelashes, that makes her blink rapidly and smile, a private smile meant for no one but herself and Cassandra, the sight of which cuts through her, the sight of which squeezes her like a gauntleted fist around all of her organs, the sight of which is a final blow that shatters something in her.

 

92\. The stone arch that Cassandra pulls Vivienne under, uncaring witness to a speech that starts out, "I am not good at this--I will never be--and it is impossible--and--" but from that fumbling beginning ends with Vivienne's freezing fingers in the short hair on the back of Cassandra's head. "Do hush," she says, with a tenderness rarer than attar of roses.

 

100\. The Unknown Letter to the Montsimmardais, known during the Divine Victoria's life as the Unchaste Letter, a polemic which called into question the meaning of the vow of chastity, asserting its true purpose was to keep the mind focused on the will of the Maker and away from squalid jealousies; "...however, as wine is not banned to all, despite the existence of drunkards, as swimming is not banned to all, despite drownings, as unnecessary deprivation is as self-centered and prideful as unnecessary gluttony, should the clergy be denied the act of love?" The Unchaste Letter, while not the first to argue this, would become the most famous, after accusations that the Right Hand of Divine Victoria was seen reading it, and for the fact the Divine herself refused to comment on it, even during the riots in Churneau, even during the storm of controversy that wracked the Chantry in its wake. Her silence was conspicuous, and when Revered Mother Lisette attempted to force the issue during the Exalted Council of 9:60 Dragon, her response--that she had larger issues to concern herself with than keeping her Sisters' collective knees together--threw oil on the fire of an already contentious reign.

 

(EPILOGUE:

101\. "Dagna made it," Sera says.  
"I am not surprised."  
"It vibrates," Sera says.  
"By the Maker, not in here it doesn't.")


End file.
